Uveal melanoma is a rare eye cancer that affects about 1,600 people in the United States. A study by scientists in the Center for Cancer Research and Aura Biosciences, Cambridge, Mass., published December 14, 2017, in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, provides new hope for the early treatment of uveal melanoma. Read more…

A type of virus that dominates water samples taken from the world's oceans has long escaped analysis because it has characteristics that standard tests can't detect. However, researchers at MIT and the Albert Einstein Colleg

Ed Rybicki's insight:

It's like dark matter: viruses that evade established methods of detection. BUT we can back-check on collected data to see if they're there...

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. –– When biomolecular engineer Phil Berman began his postgraduate work in the 1980s, he had no idea he would spend the rest of his career searching for a way to stop a deadly virus that was then almost entirely known. But around him, as if from nowhere, hundreds of people began to die. He has spent the past three decades looking for an effective vaccine against the AIDS epidemic that would claim more than 20,000 lives in the coastal metropolis alone.

The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) classifies viruses into families, genera and species and provides a regulated system for their nomenclature that is universally used in virus descriptions. Virus taxonomic assignments have traditionally been based upon virus phenotypic properties such as host range, virion morphology and replication mechanisms, particularly at family level. However, gene sequence comparisons provide a clearer guide to their evolutionary relationships and provide the only information that may guide the incorporation of viruses detected in environmental (metagenomic) studies that lack any phenotypic data. The current study sought to determine whether the existing virus taxonomy could be reproduced by examination of genetic relationships through the extraction of protein-coding gene signatures and genome organisational features. We found large-scale consistency between genetic relationships and taxonomic assignments for viruses of all genome configurations and genome sizes. The analysis pipeline that we have called ‘Genome Relationships Applied to Virus Taxonomy’ (GRAViTy) was highly effective at reproducing the current assignments of viruses at family level as well as inter-family groupings into orders. Its ability to correctly differentiate assigned viruses from unassigned viruses, and classify them into the correct taxonomic group, was evaluated by threefold cross-validation technique. This predicted family membership of eukaryotic viruses with close to 100% accuracy and specificity potentially enabling the algorithm to predict assignments for the vast corpus of metagenomic sequences consistently with ICTV taxonomy rules. In an evaluation run of GRAViTy, over one half (460/921) of (near)-complete genome sequences from several large published metagenomic eukaryotic virus datasets were assigned to 127 novel family-level groupings. If corroborated by other analysis methods, these would potentially more than double the number of eukaryotic virus families in the ICTV taxonomy. A rapid and objective means to explore metagenomic viral diversity and make informed recommendations for their assignments at each taxonomic layer is essential. GRAViTy provides one means to make rule-based assignments at family and order levels in a manner that preserves the integrity and underlying organisational principles of the current ICTV taxonomy framework. Such methods are increasingly required as the vast virosphere is explored.

We demonstrate a platform to screen a virus pseudotyped with Ebola virus glycoprotein (GP) against a library of peptides that contain non-natural amino acids to develop GP affinity ligands. This system could be used for rapid development of peptide-based antivirals for other emerging or neglected tropical in

Social media rumours are putting Nigeria's vaccination campaigns at risk.

When a rumour surfaced in 2003 that Nigeria’s polio vaccine was possibly being contaminated with anti-fertility agents a boycott of the vaccine ensued and the country’s polio immunisation campaign was dealt a heavy blow. The boycott lasted for nearly 15 months – from February 2003 to July 2004 – and it had devastating consequences. The polio caseload shot up. And by 2008, Nigeria alone accounted for 86% of all the polio cases on the continent. Since the boycott the country has struggled to be declared polio free.

The article explains how fatal consequences resulted when Nigerians decided to mass-boycott a polio vaccination, due to circulating rumours that the government had tainted the polio vaccine with an anti-fertility agent. This unfortunate and unnecessary loss of life reminds us of the importance of communication — all this could have been prevented if the government had properly communicated with the locals, informing them of the main components of the vaccine and assuring them of its safety. What is even more important is the building up of trust between the two parties. Though such an initiative might undoubtedly take time and effort, it would surely be worth it in order to allow the locals and the officials to move together to make the country a better place in solidarity.

Southern Illinois University's medical school has halted all herpes research, one of its most high-profile projects, amid growing controversy over a researcher's unauthorized methods offshore and in the U.S.

Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Clinic have created a capsule that can provide a week’s well worth of HIV drugs in a single dose. The new capsule is developed so that people can get it just after a week, and the drug will launch gradually all over the week. Researchers at MIT and …

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